Weeding the garden of your time

Tending the garden of your heart - Day 94

When it comes to gardening in the colder climates time is of great essence. The gardener knows that he or she needs to use the time wisely, observing the weather conditions and getting the seeds in the ground as quickly as possible - not too early due to frost that could kill the seeds and not too late so that the plants have a chance in the warm weather to bear fruit before the cold weather comes again. The gardener learns to use his or her time wisely to ensure a successful harvest.

Once our time is gone, we could never retrieve that moment, it is gone forever. Therefore observing how you use your time will give you indicators as to how it's being spent and what adjustments need to be made to gain the maximum benefit of your time.

6 tips to weeding the garden of your time

1) Observe your daily routines.

You'll begin to see patterns emerge - things that you do on a regular basis. Be the silent observer of you.

2) Prioritize your regular daily activities.

Which activities are high priority and which ones are low? In your rating of these priorities, are you placing low priorities before your high priority activities?

3) Look closer at your low priority activities.

Are these necessary to engage in or can you limit the amount of time you spend on your low priority activities to give more attention to those high priority tasks?

4) How would you feel if you got all of your high priority activities completed?

Would that give you a sense of accomplishment or even a sense of empowerment knowing that you've finished what you set out to do? Once you've completed your high priority tasks, then you can either focus on your low priority activities or look for other items which you can complete before engaging in low or non-essential activities.

5) Delegating

Some of your high priority items and even some of your low priorities can be delegated to free you up to get more done.

6) Measure the amount of time you spend on a project.

When you give yourself a certain amount of time to work on a project, i.e. 15 minutes, 30 minutes etc. you set yourself to work faster within the allotted time as opposed to just saying you'll finish the assignment without a time limit. You're tempted to go slowly using more time to complete the task than if you put yourself on a timer.

When you put a system in place using all of the above, you'll find you get more done within a shorter period as you continue weeding the garden of your time.